To this petition your Committee find two accounts annexed, in which the sums said to be paid to or taken by Mr. Barwell, and the respective dates of the several payments, are specified; and they find that the account of particulars agrees with and makes up the gross sum charged in the petition.
Mr. Barwell's immediate answer to the preceding charge is contained in two letters to the board, dated 23rd and 24th of March, 1775. The answer is remarkable. He asserts, that "the whole of Kaworke's relation is a gross misrepresentation of facts;—that the simple fact was, that in January, 1774, the salt mahls of Savagepoor and Selimabad became his, and were re-let by him to this man, in the names of Bussunt Roy and Kissen Deb, on condition that he should account with him [Mr. Barwell] for profits to a certain sum, and that he [Mr. Barwell] engaged for Savagepoor in the persuasion of its being a very profitable farm"; and he concludes with saying, "If I am mistaken in my reasoning, and the wish to add to my fortune has warped my judgment, in a transaction that may appear to the board in a light different to what I view it in, it is past,—I cannot recall it,—and I rather choose to admit an error than deny a fact." In his second letter he says, "To the Honorable Court of Directors I will submit all my rights in the salt contracts I engaged in; and if in their opinion those rights vest in the Company, I will account to them for the last shilling I have received from such contracts, my intentions being upright; and as I never did wish to profit myself to the prejudice of my employers, by their judgment I will be implicitly directed."
The majority of the board desired that Kaworke's petition should be transmitted to England by the ship then under dispatch; and it was accordingly sent with Mr. Barwell's replies. Mr. Barwell moved that a committee should be appointed to take into consideration what he had to offer on the subject of Kaworke's petition; and a committee was accordingly appointed, consisting of all the members of the Council except the Governor-General.
The committee opened their proceedings with reading a second petition from Kaworke, containing corrected accounts of cash said to be forcibly taken, and of the extraordinary and unwarrantable profits taken or received from him by Richard Barwell, Esquire; all which are inserted at large in the Appendix. By these accounts Mr. Barwell is charged with a balance or debt of 22,421 rupees to Kaworke. The principal difference between him and Mr. Barwell arises from a different mode of stating the accounts acknowledged to exist between them. In the account current signed by Mr. Barwell, he gives Kaworke credit for the receipt of 98,426 rupees, and charges him with a balance of 27,073 rupees.
The facts stated or admitted by Mr. Barwell are as follow: that the salt farms of Selimabad and Savagepoor were his, and re-let by him to the two Armenian merchants, Michael and Kaworke, on condition of their paying him 1,25,000 rupees, exclusive of their engagements to the Company; that the engagement was written in the name of Bussunt Roy and Kissen Deb Sing; and Mr. Barwell says, that the reason of its being "in these people's names was because it was not thought consistent with the public regulations that the names of any Europeans should appear."
It is remarkable that this policy was carried to still greater length. Means were used to remove such an obnoxious proceeding, as far as possible, from the public eye; and they were such as will strongly impress the House with the facility of abuse and the extreme difficulty of detection in everything which relates to the Indian administration. For these substituted persons were again represented by the further substitution of another name, viz., Rada Churn Dey, whom Mr. Barwell asserts to be a real person living at Dacca, and who stood for the factory of Dacca; whereas the Armenian affirms that there was no such person as Rada Churn, and that it was a fictitious name.
Mr. Barwell, in his justification, proceeds to affirm, that Coja Kaworke never had the management of the salt mahls, "but on condition of accounting to the former Chief, and to Mr. Barwell, for a specified advantage arising from them,—that Mr. Barwell determined, without he could reconcile the interests of the public with his own private emoluments, that he would not engage in this concern,—and that, when he took an interest in it, it was for specified benefit in money, and every condition in the public engagement to be answered."
Your Committee have stated the preceding facts in the same terms in which they are stated by Mr. Barwell. The House is to judge how far they amount to a defence against the charges contained in Kaworke's petition, or to an admission of the truth of the principal part of it. Mr. Barwell does not allow that compulsion was used to extort the money which he received from the petitioner, or that the latter was dispossessed of the farms in consequence of an offer made to Mr. Barwell by another person (Ramsunder Paulet) to pay him a lac of rupees more for them. The truth of these charges has not been ascertained. They were declared by Mr. Barwell to be false, but no attempt was made by him to invalidate or confute them, though it concerned his reputation, and it was his duty, in the station wherein he was placed, that charges of such a nature should have been disproved,—at least, the accuser should have been pushed to the proof of them. Nothing of this kind appears to have been done, or even attempted.
The transaction itself, as it stands, is clearly collusive; the form in which it is conducted is clandestine and mysterious in an extraordinary degree; and the acknowledged object of it a great illicit profit, to be gained by an agent and trustee of the Company at the expense of his employers, and of which he confesses he has received a considerable part.
The committee of the Governor-General and Council appear to have closed their proceedings with several resolutions, which, with the answers given by Mr. Barwell as a defence, are inserted in the Appendix. The whole are referred thither together, on account of the ample extent of the answer. These papers will be found to throw considerable light not only on the points in question, but on the general administration of the Company's revenues in Bengal. On some passages in Mr. Barwell's defence, or account of his conduct, your Committee offer the following remarks to the judgment of the House.